Harajuku: Pink Eye

I took this shot right before leaving for the States this summer and I've been sitting on it. As you can see, this girl whom I saw in Harajuku, is wearing pink color eye contacts...not a strange occurence in Harajuku. She was posing for a local magazine that highlights the fashion and trends of the Harajuku style. So like the hack that I am I stood behind the photographer (as did a few others) and snapped a few pictures.

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Harajuku: Peacock Feathers

This girl is really fascinating to me. She is obviously really into the Harajuku goth/moulin rouge dress up scene and she is Japanese, but she has these really pretty green/gray eyes...much lighter than the typical. She wasn't too interested in posing for anyone. She was sitting around a larger photography crew and was turning slightly away from us amateur hacks...but only slightly.

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Harajuku: Little Bo Peep

I found this girl hanging out with the "Free Hugs" people - a group of people who do just that, stand around offering to give free hugs to people. She was quiet and shy, but nice enough to pose for a picture. Check the main website for pictures of this girl. She's in full pink Little Bo Peep regalia. No pink sheep following her around, however.

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Harajuku: Bandaged Beauty

Harajuku is a funky part of town not too far from where I live. Young kids, mostly girls, gather on Sunday afternoons in costumes that represent everything from gothic-inspired, anime, Little Bo Peep, Lolita and everything in between. It's a great site to behold.

This girl here has dreadlocks, tattoos and bandages across her face. A very odd exterior, but soft features nevertheless.

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Dragonfly

This picture was taken on the same day as this picture of a drop of water, and this other picture of a drop of water. I was in the Imperial Palace gardens shooting for a good part of the morning on an extended business trip to Tokyo in October 2007. This dragonfly was just hanging out on this hedge and didn't seem to mind that I was following, watching, and shooting him. It was really cool. He was really big!

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Yet another water drop

You might think that I'm obsessed with water droplets, what with that other two shots of water drops that I've uploaded to the photo blog. Yes, you're right. But I couldn't help myself with my macro lens. It really does make it so easy to get up close to clearly see things like a drop of water. Anyway, the depth of field and the focus is the hardest part, of course. If you don't have a steady hand...which I don't...then it could make taking shots really hard.

Anyway, this time this photo was taken in Tokyo. It wasn't in a very peaceful place at all. It was along the side of the road on my way to the Imperial Palace...where I took this shot. It had rained the night before and despite the throng of pedestrians and the rumbling of traffic behind me, I was able to snap this shot. I promise this will be my last water droplet shot for a while...until the next time, right? This shot happens to be my background on my work laptop.

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Asakusa Shrine

On one of our outings, we went to Asakusa Shrine here in Tokyo. I found myself having a hard time shooting because there were so many people and ultimately I couldn't get a good shot without people in the way. I sort of gave in and shot anyway.

I turned this shot into black and white and tried to darken the photograph a bit to lessen the prominence of the people. And as I have done a lot, I colorized the middle lantern.

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Tokyo Tower from Roppongi Hills

Roppongi Hills is a newish development that has a 52 story building - rather rare in earthquake prone Japan - with a city-view observatory. This has a wonderful view of Tokyo from an almost 360 degree view. Here is a shot of Tokyo Tower looking north and east.

I'm not sure how I feel about this shot. I think I like the idea of it and the ideal of what this shot could become. The execution I think is lacking. For one I was standing a few feet back from the glass, in which you can see faint reflections of people standing. That's too bad.

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Four

There is a place in Tokyo called Roppongi which I guess could be called the entertainment capital of Tokyo, especially for foreigners. In reality there are different "entertainment capitals" depending on your demographic. Anyway, On the back side of a large shopping, movie, restaurant complex is this cool lighted wall of glass with numbers spaced every few yards.

Anthon was running around wildly and we were having family night out so I didn't get to spend too much time shooting. I waited for a group of people walking in front of me to get the contrast of darkened, shadowy profiles of people in front of the large number four.

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Tokyo Mosque

With our move to Japan we didn't expect to get a view of a mosque. In fact, I didn't even know there was a mosque. But it has a prominent fixture in our home as we can see it from any room on the western side of our apartment. It's particularly beautiful in the evening and the sun sets behind it.

This shot was taken on one of our first nights here in our new place in Tokyo.

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A drop of water

I actually took this shot today. I'm on an extended business trip to Japan and had the entire day free on Saturday. I lugged all of my photographic equipment all the way to Japan for just such an occassion.

It has rained the night before I took this shot and that meant plenty of opportunities to take pictures of leaves with little beads of water on them. I've never successfully shot one, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about this one. maybe it's the closest one I've taken to being remotely shaprly in-focus. This was taken inside the public gardens of the Imperial Palace. I took a lot of time looking for shots - nearly two hours. I had my iPod on and I tuned out the world while taking pictures. A very good day.

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Shibuya at Night

I was in Japan a few weeks ago and I spent some time after work one night in the Shibuya area of Tokyo. Shibuya is known for being the hang out for the young. This shot is taking from Hachiko Square, near the main exit to the train and subway lines and the main entry point into the shops, restaurants and other nightlife of Shibuya.

The picture taken below is a panorama compiled from four individual shots I took with my Nikon. I then stitched the photos together using a really nice piece of free software called, Autostitch. All you need to do is take a number of pictures in succession with some overlapping scenes and then drop them into the program and after a while a panorama will appear.

Over the next few months, I will be spending a lot more time in Japan for work. I am taking my camera each time so that I can take more panoramas of places like the Imperial Palace and the Ginza area, etc.

A shot like this really needs to be seen in a much larger size. Download the full photograph by clicking on the image below.